Terror of the Trdlo - Part the Two-th

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For part I of this story I wrote, click on THIS.  There will be narrative blood.
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THE TERROR OF THE TRDLO - Part II

The Sisters of St. Vlasta, most of them quite young, had been enjoying the latest in their increasinglyfrequent breaks repairing and refurbishing their abbey and brewery.  A little more than a month ago, their home and enterprise had been besieged and invaded by an army of mercenary thugs.  Zdenka and her friends had been instrumental in winning this battle.  It was imperative for the nuns to get their damaged brewery running again and start mass quantities of beer, Vodnikov’s economic lifeblood, flowing to the neighborhood’s Krajan-owned pubs again. 

Zdenka turned her head to watch the nuns’ heroine.  She puffed a springy curl away from her face.  

Zdenka could see Beata’s lovely eyes and teeth sparkling in the firelight as she told tales.  Her golden curls glinted around her head like a halo.  Beata looked like a mischievous angel inciting a flight of her sisters to sneak into God’s kitchen and siphon away a few drops of divine mead.  

“And so it had become a subtle duel,” Zdenka heard Beata’s bell-toned voice change to a stage whisper.  “I summoned Aurelie, the Count’s ravishingly well-favored servant girl, and bid her to attend my message carefully and impart it exactly to her master.  I kissed her full for sixty heartbeats, then sent her across the room to kiss the fiery-eyed Count.”

Shocked and titillated laughter pealed and shrieked through the beer hall.  With that, an older nun announced over the din that it was time to get back to work.  She pushed back her bench, straddled it, swung one leg after the other, lurched back to the brewery.  With a rutching of benches on the rough floorboards, the other nuns followed suit, still ebullient with the risqué frisson of what they had heard.

“Isn’t she fascinating!” a particularly young ruddy-cheeked Sister burbled to no one in particular as the gaggle of nuns exited the room.  “So absolutely beguiling!”

Zdenka watched from her corner and sighed.  Beata’s story was true.  She had been there.  She remembered how miserable she felt, shivering in her hiding place behind the Count’s favorite tapestry, the Count’s filched jewels secreted in her belt, hearing every detail of what was transpiring between the Count and Beata and Aurelie.  

At the time, Zdenka was afraid to claim any right to be jealous.  But Zdenka had recently begun asserting herself and demanded Beata clarify things between them.  

Now Beata insisted to Zdenka that she was changing, had changed, that her true soul loved Zdenka and Zdenka alone among mortal women or men.

It was a struggle for Zdenka to believe.  She had seen contrary evidence so many times in past years.

Zdenka was lost in thought, alone with only Beata remaining in the room with her, albeit at the opposite end, straightening her skirts and standing up from the bench where she had recently been holding court.

Zdenka drew another dagger from its hiding place in her armor, absent-mindedly readying another throw at the same knothole she had bulls-eyed earlier.  A door from the brewery side creaked suddenly open.  Zdenka spun her head toward it and bolted up from the bench into a fighter’s crouch.

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Click on the link for Part III - The Terror of the Trdlo - Nun: The Wiser